


It'll Be Okay

by kunimi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Attempt at angst, Gen, and another dream, ghost - Freeform, theres a cat, this was less shippy than i wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunimi/pseuds/kunimi
Summary: There are things that the human eyes can’t see. Most of the times, those things should be left unseen, but sometimes, it’s necessary.





	It'll Be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> #oikawachallenge2018  
>  ~~drops this at the bottom of a cliff~~

Tooru is probably dreaming.

Probably. He’s not sure.

There’s nothing around him. Well, nothing would be wrong. As far as he can tell, he’s surrounded by darkness, save for the large screen in front of him. It’s blindingly white, a stark contrast to the dark background and Tooru has to squint his eyes to see in front of him.

As he walks, Tooru can’t help thinking that it’s like using dark mode on a messaging app, then suddenly, someone sends a picture of their screen and they’re using light mode. Extremely unpleasant. Not recommended. Definitely worthy of a murder.

There’s a cat sitting in front of the screen, tail lazily swinging around. It’s a familiar sight, and Tooru narrows his eyes just as the animal turns its head to look at him. He recognizes it simply by the ugly green eyes.

This little shit.

“Matcchan, you little shit, do you know who called to complain about the problems you caused, yesterday?” Tooru asks, an irritated smile on his face. His cat lets out a long meow in response, as if bored, then stretches out a paw before patting the space next to it.

Tooru huffs and crosses his arms. “I’m not moving until you apologize for breaking Mom’s mug! It's the third one this month! And that was the one _I_ bought.”

The cat only gives him a deadpan stare.

Tooru stomps his foot when there’s no response from his cat. “Even if this is just a dream, you should still do just as I say!”

Instead of the animal answering him as he wants, the screen behind it flickers to life. Two kids appear, both far too close to the camera, their chins being the only visible thing on screen. Then, the view slides up and shows both kids staring intently with sparkling eyes just before it focuses on an empty corner.

Without warning, hands appear, then a loud hiss and Tooru can see a little brown-haired boy obviously holding the camera in place. “His eyes are green. But like, an ugly green. Like matcha. I’m gonna name him Matcha,” the boy says with a grin that shows his missing front tooth, “nice to meet you, Matcchan~”

“Don’t hold onto her like that, Oikawa,” the other kid pries off Oikawa’s hands and Tooru watches as the camera (at this point, he’s pretty sure it isn’t a camera, seems more like an animal) moves away to a higher spot and stares at the kids from afar.

Oikawa pouts. “Matcchan got away... It’s your fault, Hajime! You scared him away!”

Hajime crosses his arms. “First of all, Matcha is a _girl_. Second, you shouldn’t hold a pet like that. That’s what your mom told me.”

Tooru grimaces as he watches the kids argue before they start running towards the camera and knocks it off its tower, then pet it a little too aggressively, ignoring the hissing. “Alright, Iwa-chan and I weren't that nice with you when we were younger _and_ I might have been a little rude to refer to you as a male instead of a female, but I made it up to you, didn’t I?”

Matcha just stretches, yawning. Meanwhile, the screen flickers again before showing a different scene. Tooru cringes.

“That was an accident! How was I supposed to know that it was going to stain your fur pink for half a year?”

His cat lets out a long bored meow. Tooru watches as the screen splits into four, then sixteen, then sixty-four and so on, displaying familiar scenes featuring familiar people. Tooru begrudgingly admits defeat as he sits down next to Matcha.

“I'll have revenge when I go back home,” he grumbles into his palm, resting his elbow on his knee and looking away from the screen.

Instead of answering, Matcha leaps onto Tooru’s lap, forcing him to remove his arm, then makes itself comfortable. Tooru sighs. Even if this is just a dream, his cat can't develop talking abilities, can it?

So Tooru shuts up, but not without a pout, and watches whatever the screen has to show him, per Matcha’s request.

Familiar scenes drift under his eyes. He sees himself from one, five, ten years ago. He watches himself grow up, along with his best friend and their families (“Puberty did me _extremely_ well, unfortunately for Iwa-chan,” he points out with a grin as he pets Matcha. She swats at his hand when he’s about to stroke her for the fifth time. “You are _so_ picky. Pickier than _me_!”).

~~Every so often, he has to look away from the screen. There aren’t any tissues nearby so he uses his arm to clumsily wipe his face. And barely, just the hint of a whisper, Tooru says a name.~~

He pays more attention to the unfamiliar scenes, wonders about the translucent figures he sees sometimes, listens to words he's never heard (“I _knew_ they all appreciated my presence! Honestly, who wouldn't?” Tooru exclaims at some point and his cat replies with a meow that can only be described as a scoff. “I'm offended, Matcchan, I’m offended.”), shrieks out in horror every time he sees himself asleep with bed hair (“ _Why_ would you show this to me?! And why are there so _many_?!”).

After a while, Tooru gasps in realization, startling his sleepy cat. “I'm not dead, am I? Is this why you're showing me this?” He stands up abruptly, much to Matcha’s displeasure. “I can't die yet! I still have much to do! And it's too early for the world to lose my _delightful_ presence!”

Matcha blinks, then yawns.

_“Well, this is kind of awkward.”_

Tooru looks back at the screen, bites his lip as he stares. Spiky dark hair, green eyes a shade brighter than Matcha’s. “Iwa-chan?” His face lights up. “Iwa-chan! He looks just as I remember, grumpy face, mean eyes—wait, when did he visit you, we were in Tokyo for the past—” he freezes.

Matcha meows. Stares closely at him. Waiting for his reaction, Tooru supposes.

After all, Iwaizumi’s translucent.

Now, Tooru may be mostly a fanatic of aliens, but he also knows what it means when people are somewhat see-through. Not only that, Iwaizumi looks just as he remembers most recently in his own memories.

And Tooru hasn't seen Iwaizumi in months.

 _"Hello there, Matcha,”_ Iwaizumi greets as he extends his hand towards screen-Matcha. He quickly retracts his hand when she hisses before grinning and making a move to pet her again. Only, his hand just _goes through_. _“Even like this, I can't pet you, can I? Well, it doesn't matter.”_

“When was this?” Tooru asks, despite knowing the answer (it had been a cloudy day after a thunderstorm. There had been a lot of unanswered calls, of lost messages, red-rimmed eyes and lip gnawing). His eyes are glued to the screen, afraid, terrified to miss any detail of the memory.

Screen-Matcha stares as Iwaizumi approaches the sleeping figure. It's a familiar room. Posters of space, a volleyball that's fallen from its spot near the bed, glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling. It's been a while since Tooru’s set foot in that room.  

Screen-Matcha gets close to the bed as well. Jumps next to the pillow. Tooru grimaces at the sight of his bed hair but doesn't loudly comment on it as he did earlier. Instead, he watches as Iwaizumi reaches out a hand to stroke Oikawa’s hair, but the same thing happens as it did with Matcha. His hand passes through, though Oikawa does wrinkle his nose, still asleep.

 _“Figures,”_ Iwaizumi notes, _“can't touch him either.”_

 _“Hey—Matcha, can I ask you a favour?”_ Iwaizumi asks, eyes still on Oikawa. Screen-Matcha meows. Next to Tooru, Matcha sits up straight and meows too. _“Stay with him. Don't leave him alone. He's an amazing guy—could do anything he sets his mind to. This idiot—he could probably conquer the world if he wanted. Stop him from doing that though, since—”_ Iwaizumi smiles a little, looking awkward as he's usually the type to frown— _”since I won't be there to stop him instead.”_

“Iwa-chan, you’re the fucking idiot,” Tooru says, “there's no way I'd want the world if I don't have you by my side.”

 _“So—”_ Iwaizumi is cut off by a shrill ringtone. He look at screen-Matcha who’s shaking ever so slightly. Behind Iwaizumi, Oikawa bolts up, awake, turns to look at his bedside table, then groans when he sees screen-Matcha.

“Matcchan, move it.”

Oikawa tries to push his cat away, groans when she doesn’t move (“Why are you like _this_ , you fat cat?” He lamented, and then— ” _Please_ , move.”). Screen-Matcha looks at Iwaizumi who's behind Oikawa. He waves at her.

 _“I'll see you some other day, Matcha. Take care of Assikawa for me, alright?”_ And with that, he fades away. Oikawa turns around just then, blinks a couple of time as if he could still see Iwaizumi’s ghost but he can't, so he goes back to trying to wretch his phone out from under his cat.

The screen fades to black, save for a small white disk that floats around within the box. Tooru doesn't say anything, eyes fixated on the moving spot and Matcha is simply pawing at his leg in boredom. Both of them already know what happened during that phone call and after.

~~A lot of tears, of screaming. People bursting into the room. _You’ll be fine, Tooru, it’ll be okay, please, please, Tooru. It’ll be okay._~~

“It’ll be okay,” Tooru repeats absentmindedly as he stares at the ceiling.

After a while, she ends up curling into a ball next to him and Tooru automatically starts petting her. Then he huffs. “Was there a point in showing me this? It's not like I didn't already know any of this. And was that insult at the end really necessary?” Tooru pouts. “I’m offended.”

Matcha lifts her head. Gives him a deadpan stare. Meows. Puts her head back down.

Tooru rolls his eyes. “Come here, you little asshole, onto Daddy’s lap.”

His cat gives him an affronted look and Tooru can't help but burst out laughing. Matcha still climbs onto his lap all the same, purrs as he starts to stroke her.

When she doesn't react after he goes past her four-pets-only limit, Tooru smiles a little and bends down to kiss her head. “Good night, Matcchan. Thank you.”

* * *

Tooru wakes up feeling a little more groggy than usual, his mind foggy, his pillow somewhat wet and eyes burning just a tad bit. He sits up to look at his phone, flops back down onto his bed when he realizes it's not even 5 AM yet.

Somehow, he can guess how the next hour will go. There’ll be a phone call. His mom will ask him how he's doing, when will he come visit, if he's been eating well, if he's found a girlfriend yet. And dutifully, like a good son, Tooru will reply he’s fine, he’ll visit soon, of course he's been eating well and no, he hasn't been looking to date anyways.

And then she'll let him know about the news. Tooru will go quiet. So quiet, his mom will call his name a couple of times just to make sure he's still there. And yes, he is, he’ll say before telling her that he’ll come see her this next weekend. Afterwards, he’ll hang up and lie on his bed for a couple more hours, deadly silent, face hidden under his arms and cheeks wet.

~~It’ll be okay.~~

But until then, he has another half an hour to go, so he pulls the covers over his head and tries to go back to sleep. The next time he wakes up, he could've sworn he heard Iwaizumi’s voice ( _“Look, he’s fine. He’ll be fine. So come, Matcha, I'll bring you home.”_ ) followed by Matcha’s lazy meow.

His room feels just a bit colder than usual, today.

**Author's Note:**

> i... i'm sorry for this? ~~though it took me longer than it should have to have written this. and i still don't really like it~~  
>  it's less angsty than it should've been so that's fine. i think. i'm sorry for killing off the cat.
> 
> shout out to [loveintheveins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveintheveins) for bringing me into this, though, it was fun :') check out the [tumblr](https://oikawachallenge2018.tumblr.com) for more amazing entries tho. AND ARTS.
> 
> tumblr | [@kunimint](https://kunimint.tumblr.com/)  
> reblog link | x


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